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Cover design has been in motion for a little while now, and I am expecting some initial designs very soon. Needless to say I’m quite eager to see what the designer has come up with.

I’m nearing the end of another proof read myself, and also awaiting another batch of feedback from the very kind individuals who beta read for me, who are also ruthlessly blunt when it comes to their criticism! This is something that I really wasn’t sure how I’d feel about. In a sense I suppose it’s like having someone tell you they think your kids are ugly, but I found that I really wasn’t bothered by any of the criticisms levelled at my work.

The only reason I can come up with for this is in two parts. First, I was extremely keen to make my book as good as it possibly could be, so I was open to hearing about things that others felt could be improved upon. Secondly, all of the feedback that was given was extremely constructive. When they said they thought something didn’t work, they said (in one case at great length!) why they thought it didn’t work.

While it is still my book and I have no intention of changing every single thing that anyone raises a query over, what was particularly useful was that it made me really think about different aspects of what I had written. I may not have changed the things in the way they suggested, but I certainly spent quite a bit of time thinking about each of the areas that they flagged, and this allowed me to tweak things in a way that I felt improved the overall book. They raised thought points, and also questions that I had to answer, and this was of enormous assistance in making my final edit as polished as I can.